ANSWERED Vector Road Lights

[zero]

Hi,

I should like to confirm the problem a number of other users are reporting concerning the vector road lights. I'm not sure when the problem started but right now I have no road lights in any of the FTX regions I am using. In addition, the number of lights that are to be seen in towns appear to be diminished in number. Peculiarly, the absence of vector road lights and the diminished number of town lights (if that is indeed the case) is true even when the FTX regions are turned off. Thus, with the scenery configuration set to FTX Global in hybrid mode the problem persists - no road lights in those areas covered by the FTX regions. Oddly, however, in those areas not covered by the FTX regions the road lighting and town lighting is working fine. I have both FsX and P3d and I have installed Northern Ireland, Scotland and England separately into both simulators and the problem occurs in both.

I haven't made any changes to P3D though I have installed the DX10 scenery fixer in FsX. I have installed into both simulators the FTXGlobal 1.10 fix for the green deserts. I have also applied all the latest patches.

I should be very grateful for some advice about how to fix this problem.

 

Regards,

 

Adam Mills.



Australia Sp3 (CD version) Invoice No. FSS0098080
England FSS0187538
Central Rocky Mountains  FSS0159133
New Zealand, South Island FSS0142788
Northern Rocky Mountains FSS0093002
Pacific North West FSS0053640
Scotland FSS0218330
Wales FSS0203482
FTX Global FSS0223069

 

[zero]

Hi,

 

Further to my previous post about the missing vector road lights I have done some more experimentation without success. I have no vector road lights in the FTX regions, that is Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, PNW, CRM and NRM. In FTX Central I have ticked the 'use vector road lights box' and I have enabled the night lights using the night switcher. There are no road lights whether I use FTX Global in hybrid mode or use one of the regions by itself. If I use FTX global without using hybrid mode I do have road lights!

 

I notice that one or two other people are reporting the same problem and even though I have read through the posts I haven't found any advice about how to fix this problem. I don't see how this can be a clash with other scenery because I have added no new scenery apart from Orbx scenery and I am using the default scenery layering.

 

I really would appreciate some help on this issue,

 

Thanks,

 

Adam Mills.

 

 

[Misha Cajic]

Hi Adam,

The full FTX regions use older style lights which are much sparser and dimmer than the FTX Global ones, however if it is not showing up for you at all then there is indeed a problem on your system.

 

Could you post up a screenshot of what one of the full FTX regions looks like at night? For the best idea take the shot in a city like London, Seattle, Sydney etc.

[zero]

Hi Misha,

 

Thank you for your reply. I have taken two screenshots both of Seattle just to the west of KSEA. I have lightended both images slightly to better show the roads and the absence of the street lights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see there are lights dotted around but no lights following the roads. I know that town lighting is more sparce in the FTX regions compared to FTXG but that is not the issue. Now it maybe that I am mis-remembering, but I am sure that before installing FTXG there were strings of lights along the roads. The absence of these strings of street lights is true of all the regions I mentioned in my previous post.

 

Regards,

 

Adam Mills.

 

 

 

 

[mickcall999]

There is another post re lighting see "lights are few and far in between" hardly any lights in FTX regions but looks ok in global areas. beginning to find it a bit confusing.   

[a340500]

I managed to get Vector road lights working in the FTX Regions by turning off Hybrid mode and leaving Vector road lights and Orbx trees on.

No idea what this means during the day in these regions but at night it looks great especially YMML after takeoff and a right turn towards the CBD.

[Misha Cajic]

That looks correct to me, if you do not have your autogen density slider at 'extremely dense' then you will see much less lights.

[zero]

Hi,

 

Thank you for your helpful suggestions, unfortunately switiching off hybrid mode when using FTXG is just a work-round not a solution to the problem of the missing vector road lights. If you use FTXG with hybrid mode turned off you are simply reverting to the default landclass - in effect, switiching off hybrid mode switches off the FTX special regions. As I pointed out before what is bizarre about this puzzle is that in non FTX regions the night lighting is working fine. Again, I know that night lighting in the FTX regions is sparse compared to the non FTX regions but the issue that I am trying to raise is specifically that the roads in the FTX regions (England, Wales, PNW etc) no longer have any lights which they did before I installed the latest patch for FTXG. I say this but without any certaintly that the patch has caused a problem but applying it was the last thing I did before noticing the missing vector road lights.

 

I don't  understand why this thread has been marked as 'Answered' becuases so far as I can see it has not. I don't think I am the only person to have noticed the problem and even A340500 says that he 'managed to get the vector road lights working' which implies there is indeed a problem. I like Orbx scenery tremendously and even flying at night I don't want to have to turn it off.

 

Regards,

 

Adam Mills.

[rogera]

I too do not have vector lighting in ORBX regions, only in Global.

[Misha Cajic]

Hi Adam,

 

So your vector road lights only do not work if you have hybrid mode enabled?

This may be correct, since with hybrid mode enabled, some compromises need to be made in terms of the features and accuracy of regions, in order to make them all work together with Global.

 

I will however notify the team about this and see if they can give a more helpful answer since this isn't my area

Cheers

[John Venema]

I think there is some confusion.

There is NO new style vector road lighting in Orbx FTX regions.

There may be some vector lighting in FTX regions where Holger or Sasha have specifically added them, but on the whole the vector lighting is much sparser than FTX Global and also much dimmer.

I think the confusion stems from the Vector Road Lights tick box in FTX Central which should not be enabled for FTX Regions. If the tick box is there when you select North America for instance, then that is a bug in FTX Central.

We have considered adding the new style vector road lights to the FTX regions but this has not been decided on yet.

I hope this clears things up.

[zero]

Hi John,

 

Thank you for your reply. FTX central has the tick box for Vector Road Lights  for two areas Oceania and Europe there are no tick boxes at all for North America.

 

I know that the FTX regions don't use the new style vector road lights because I read a post of your about it. However, I am still confused about the apparent complete absence of road lights in Europe and North America. If you look at the two screen captures I posted there are no road lights at all. It maybe that I am simply misremembering but I feel sure that there were strings of light on the roads.

 

Anyway, thank you for your clarification.

 

Regards,

 

Adam Mills.

[Misha Cajic]

Hi Adam,

What are your autogen density sliders at in those shots? I could go and take a look at the location to see if it is indeed a problem at your end or if it is normal. From what I can see you do have night lights in those shots, however since you do not have autogen maxed out, you will not see the strings of them that you are looking for.

[zero]

Hi Misha,

 

For those shots I had the autoge slider set to dense, I did try very dense but that didn't seem to make a difference - what I haven't done is max out the autogen settings: I suppose I should have done that even though I never use that setting.

 

Regards,

 

Adam

[forostar]

Would also really love to see a solution to this guys.

 

Just to confirm, I'm using exactly the same settings as Adam, but I've then tried maxing the autogen slider and I still get more or less the same level of lighting as Adam's shots above.

 

Also, switching off Vector Lights whilst leaving Hybrid mode on results in no street lighting at all. The only "lights" I then end up with consist of the dim background ground texture maps for towns and houses.

 

I've reinstalled UTX Europe night lighting as a stopgap solution. Seems to work fine with DX10 and FTX, as before. But obviously would prefer to have just the FTX lighting.

 

Kind regards

 

Chris

[Misha Cajic]

Hi guys,

 

Here are some comparison shots on my system with lights enabled, taken at roughly the same locations as Adam's

 

With dense autogen:

 

 

As you can see the lights are very sparse

 

With Extremely dense autogen:

 

 

 

Even at extremely dense autogen the lights in the full FTX regions will be very sparse, especially in urban areas.

Here is a shot a bit higher up to get a better idea of how sparse it is. As you can see not every light splash on the ground textures has a light on it:

 

 

For comparison here is a shot just outside of KSFO San Francisco with FTX Global 1.1 and maxed out autogen.

 

 

So indeed, what you are all seeing is normal, simply due to the fact that the FTX regions use the older 3D lights tech which has a big hit on performance, and is therefore used sparsely throughout the scenery

As John said, the new 3D lights tech may be implemented into the existing FTX regions to replace the older style, however it is not certain.

 

Hope that clears thing up

Cheers

[forostar]

Hmm - weird. That made no difference for me. But good to see it works for someone!

 

Well, I can cope ok with the solution I have for now. Look forward to a potential Regions Lighting fix in the future though.